Louise

  "Of course you need medicine!" Nina snorted angrily. "Dad! Don't be so stubborn!"

  Louise sighed. She sat next to her mother and helped her mend clothes. Louise had suggested buying new ones, but her mother refused.

  "My cough has gotten better!" grumbled Yorick.

  "Your cough had gotten better! Now it's EVEN WORSE!", Nina scolded. "You need medicine."

  "I could buy some..." Louise added. “That's not a problem. Really!"

  "I'm fine, honey!" Her father stroked both girls' heads. He wanted to sit next to his wife, but the cough stopped him. He even struggled for air. Yante jumped up and patted him on the back. Red blood spurted from his mouth.

  Startled, Nina cried out. "Dad!"

  Louise sighed. She had seen such a cough before. A priestess had suffered from it. No medicine and no magic had been able to help her. Both only prolonged her life, but in the end, this cough won out. The healers gave up and left the priestess to her fate.

  "I'm fine!" her father murmured. "I just have to lie down for a moment."

  The healers said at the time that this cough was too aggressive. That the priestess had angered the gods. But what should Louise father have done to upset the gods? Nothing.

  "Come Dear!" Yante murmured and accompanied her husband into the tiny bedroom. She coughed as well, but not as badly as Yorik.

  "Honey?" he asked, in arm.

  "Just a slight scratch in the throat, nothing more", Yante murmured.

  "Is it contagious?" Nina asked quietly.

  "Maybe", Louise answered. "I go and buy medicine. You persuade the two to take it, okay?"

  "What do you want to get? We don't know what kind of cough it is. And no healer will come to us. Mom's magic isn't strong enough to do anything." Nina leaned against Louise. "What can we do?"

  "Buy medicine!" said Louise firmly. "I'll get something that relieves the cough. And I buy some meat. Meat gives strength."

  "Good. I then cook something. Thank you."

  "Of course, little sister!" Louise hugged her little sister tightly.

  Lou

  Lou sat on the edge of the cliff, his legs stretched through the fence and dangling his feet. Harper sat beside him and leaned against him. The sun was setting. Red-gold light made the world seem magical. Lou enjoyed how the colors changed. A world of gold. When they were both small, Louise had imagined the home of the gods like this: a golden castle in which the gods lived.

  "Harper?"

  "Hm?"

  "Do you think the Gods of the Sand don't care about us?"

  "How do you come up with that?" Harper snuggled closer to Lou and hugged him. He pressed his nose into Lou's hair. His breath tickled.

  "Hey!" Lou leaned away from his boyfriend. "I mean, if the world is as beautiful as this sunset, how can the gods not care about us? They give us this sight. And yet... They don't help."

  "I don't know", Harper muttered. "Just ask the gods."

  "I would need magic for that. I would have to be a priest." Lou smiled briefly and ran a hand through Harper's soft hair. "I have neither one nor am I the other."

  "Who says that?"

  "Who says what?" Lou closed his eyes and enjoyed the closeness to the other boy. Harper was now his boyfriend. They were together. They belonged together. That was a good feeling. To belong to someone. It gave Lou a kind of inner peace that he hadn't known before.

  "That you can't talk to the gods?" Harper pulled on one of Lou's strands of hair. "Who says that?"

  "You're funny!" Smiling, Lou pressed a kiss on his friend's hair. "Only priests can talk to the gods! You?"

  "Yes?"

  "Can dragons talk to the gods?"

  "Somehow?" Harper sat up and moved away from Lou a little. But only to wrap both legs around the delicate boy and hug him tightly. "Some dragons talk to the gods, but they've never answered me. I stopped trying when I was... hm... maybe six?"

  "What did you tell them?"

  "I wished for something at the time."

  “And what?"

  "The cutest friend there is!" Harper joked and tickled Lou so that he had to ugh. "He should be as sweet as sugar! And smell wonderful!"

  "Harper..." Giggling, Lou tried to free himself. "I'm serious!"

  "All right. At that time I didn't say anything about sweet. Only that I wish for someone. Someone who is in the mountains just for me. I was the only cub at the time and had no one to py with. Except for my siblings. But they were too old to be able to py properly." Harper kissed Lou's neck and tickled him again. "Maybe they sent me you? Then they would have answered me."

  "I don't know..." Lou shook his head and held Harper's hands tightly so he couldn't tease him any further.

  "Lou?"

  "Yes?"

  "I think you're magical." Harper bent over Lou and gently pushed him back, close to the dragon's warm body. Then he kissed him. Lou gdly returned the kiss, even if he couldn't agree with Harper.

  Nothing about him was magical.